We were lucky to catch up with Iris Navarrette recently and have shared our conversation below.
Iris, appreciate you making time for us and sharing your wisdom with the community. So many of us go through similar pain points throughout our journeys and so hearing about how others overcame obstacles can be helpful. One of those struggles is keeping creativity alive despite all the stresses, challenges and problems we might be dealing with. How do you keep your creativity alive?
I believe keeping creativity alive is a vital part of both personal and professional growth and success. I like to say that creativity is like a muscle; you have to keep it active and strong so you can flex it when needed! In my experience, remaining committed to dedicating time for inspiration simply for the purpose of remaining open and imaginative is key. Also, finding what moves you and inspires you to feel energized toward growth is also very important; this is uniquely different for everyone. For me, it is about being inspired by people and the world around us. Whether it is standing next to a masterpiece painting and honing in on the beauty of a brush stroke that was made hundreds of years ago or reading the poems of a great writer, the vapor of the legacy of those pursuing their dreams has always served as critical creative inspiration for me. As a person who has chosen a creative path in my career, I have come to realize that it is imperative to continue to fill the bucket of my own creativity so that I can freely dole out inspiration and support to others. Creativity breeds creativity; you just need the time to allow the creative breeding ground to do what it does best!
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
After a successful three-decade-long career in the beauty industry, the time had come to branch out and start my own company. Although makeup was the business I was in, I discovered my passion and true underlying purpose involved the business of inspiring others toward pursuing their dreams and life’s purpose. I believe each of us is on an important journey that unfolds as we learn, grow, teach, give, and evolve. I wanted to share my story in the hopes of empowering others and hopefully inspiring them to work through fear and insecurities in their own lives. I aligned this intention with my dream of literary publication and have recently achieved this goal through the authoring and publishing of my first book, From Her to Eternity. It is a memoir infused with life lessons, analogies, and anecdotes, which have fostered a mindset that has proven to be invaluable in my career path as a makeup artist who forged her way into the highest rungs of the corporate ladder for the leading makeup brand in America. In the back of my mind, my objective was to write a book that I would have wanted to read when I was first starting out!
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
What stands out for me as fundamental pillars along my journey are resilience, openness, and humility. Often times, we view setbacks as negative, to the point that they can stunt our growth or knock us down as we try to move forward. As I look back, every single setback or perceived negative situation actually contained an important lesson that proved crucial for growth. Resiliency is about being adaptive and withstanding adversity with flexibility and agility. Temporary situations don’t have to become permanent obstacles. Letting go of ego is vital to remaining open and intuitive, which allows your gut instincts to be acknowledged and honored. As you foster skills in listening to your inner hunch, you can begin to examine and build an invaluable formula for combining experience with intuition, which will serve as a strong resource for decision-making and foresight. Humility is like a superpower in my book! It can be attached to the most history-making people who have left an indelible impact on the world. I believe humility is a spiritual acknowledgement that we are all on a similar journey and expresses a confident reserve that wanting to become a better version of ourselves ultimately serves everyone in the end.
Do you think it’s better to go all in on our strengths or to try to be more well-rounded by investing effort on improving areas you aren’t as strong in?
I think too often the perception is that “rounding out a person’s skill set” helps garner overall development and growth. If someone excels in a certain area, they should be able to apply that similar formula to the area that isn’t as strong for them, right? From my experience, the opposite is true. I believe we are all hard-wired with specific skills, gifts, and strengths that we are born with. As I led a large workforce, it proved more strategic and successful to do the work of identifying individual strengths, couple them with what motivates people to top performance, and accelerate the sweet spot there. You don’t see coaches of major sports teams swapping out the pitcher for the third baseman in the middle of the game because they want to challenge them and improve their strengths in other areas! You foster the innate skill, challenge them within their own specialty, and double-down on what they instinctively flourish at. I have also found that it can actually become unmotivating for people to work on areas that don’t come naturally to them under the guise of “growth.” All of that energy can be used to perfect what someone is already naturally gifted at and inspired by. From a leadership perspective, creating a powerful team based on individual strengths gives people heightened confidence, empowerment, and a meaningful sense of individual contribution. No one is great at everything, but all of us are good at something. Finding that “something” in people and strategically unleashing it within a team dynamic is probably the most powerful way to leverage individual strengths toward a common goal.
Contact Info:
- Website: glamourofhope.com
- Instagram: @iristotle1010
- Facebook: Iris Navarrette
- Linkedin: Iris Navarrette
